U.Va. planning to expand hospital and nursing school

Virginia Business
November 2005

The University of Virginia plans to add 110 beds to its medical center and construct a second nursing school building.

The plans call for adding capacity to the 547-bed medical center by 2011 through two approaches. A $58 million expansion would add 70 beds by building out onto porches and terraces that face Charlottesville’s Lee Street. Another 40 beds would be added by rearranging existing space in the hospital. The cost of that part of the project has not been determined.

The average occupancy rate of the 16-year-old medical center is now about 84 percent. With demand expected to grow 2.6 percent a year, the hospital projects that it will have a shortage of beds by 2013.

Last year, the medical center treated 29,207 in-patients and 621,993 out-patients. The hospital employs the equivalent of 5,290 full-time employees.

In addition to expanding the medical center, U.Va. plans to build a $12 million second building for its School of Nursing. The four-story building will include classrooms, offices and student-support space.

Jeannette Lancaster, dean of the nursing school, says that the current national nursing shortage is caused in part by a lack of capacity at schools. U.Va. was able to accept only 17 percent of its first-year applicants and 20 percent of transfer applicants this year.

Nursing school officials say the second building would allow it to increase enrollment by about 25 percent. The school currently has 550 undergraduate and graduate students.